anchor text vs. image alt attribute vs. title attribute

[Marcia]

Is anyone noticing any difference in the weighting given between keywords used in the anchor text of text links and keywords used in the alt attribute of images, when they're linked?

<a href="widgets.htm"><img src="widgets.jpg alt="petite ladies widgets"></a>

<a href="widgets.htm">Petite Ladies Widgets</a>

This would be for

a) Links within a site
b) Links to and from other sites

How about the title attribute compared to the others?

<a href="widgets.htm" title="petite ladies widgets">Widgets</a>

Notice the anchor text is using the single keyword and the title attribute has the three-word phrase.

Any differences noticed?

[albert]

This is on my to do list.

Not finished w/ first topics of my list.

Too much to be checked in those Dominic / Esmeralda troubles :) Advantage: response of G within a few days.

You've assumptions regarding your question?

[SuzyUK]

Marcia.. I don't know if this is the same thing but Yes I'm noticing something connected with anchor text.

A cross browser issue is that IE displays alt text as a tooltip but Opera and NN will only display the title text, and even if this is the same as the anchor text, I've been inclined to add both in order to provide the same "tooltip".. now I think (probably best not to really ;)) that this could possibly trigger a keyword density filter.. I can only remove one and shout about the other, which I've attempted to do so....

I'll try to report back if things don't go well ;)

Suzy

[adfree]

Recently there was a similar, small discussion here: [webmasterworld.com...]
Cheers, Jens

[g1smd]

The title attribute rendering as a tooltip is the correct response according to W3C.

The alt text is only supposed to show in place of an image that does not load, or is used where image loading is switched off, or on browsers that do not use images at all. It should not pop up.

The title attribute should be on the <a> anchor.

The alt attribute should be on the <img> image tag.

Have you been doing something vastly different to that?

[Dolemite]

It was my understanding that title attributes were not being considered at all. Marcia confirmed [webmasterworld.com] that for us back in February:

Incidentally, a search for an exact phrase in quotes that is only in the title attribute of a text link (with individual words that do appear individually on the page, but not in a phrase) does not show up out of 38 pages returned in a search for the exact phrase.

Are you seeing anything to suggest otherwise at this point?

[jayq]

<a> text carries the most weight for getting link pop to your site, in my opinion

[Namaste]

as far as I can see alt tag in text links is now discounted.
alt tag on images is valid
anchor text in text links is the only think considered.
Applies the same to insite and outside links.

[4serendipity]

My tests still indicate that title attribute text still isn't a factor.

[Powdork]

I do know that alt text in an image link will help to rank the page it is on when searching for the anchor text. It will help the page it links to if there is no text link to the same page. Alt text will show up in the snippets for the page it is on. If you check the cache for a page something that only appears as alt text will fall under the 'the following terms only appear in links pointing to this page' category.
I don't believe the title attribute text is a factor at this point.

[SuzyUK]

Yes after running some further tests I agree with Powdork

alt text indexed for an image
anchor text indexed for a text link
title text not indexed

don't know about alt for an anchor as I never used them and knew it was not correct to do so..

g1smd, no nothing different to that I was just going around in circles trying to reduce keyword density and was trying to figure if title text (tooltips) was being counted towards this or not, sorry for being vague ;)

so this would suggest that putting in the "title" as well as "alt" for an image in order to provide uniform tooltips should not trigger any density filters.. which is what I was concerned about.. according to SEW's density checker they are counted, or are they counted even if not indexed?

Suzy

[Powdork]

Suzyuk,
<alt text indexed for an image> only aplies if the image links to something.

[g1smd]

>> as far as I can see alt tag in text links is now discounted. <<

You cannot have alt text in a text link. The alt attribute can only be used with the <img> tag.

Valid: <img src="image.png" alt="some alt text"> but the alt text is not indexed.
The alt text is there for users. It displays when images are not loaded.

Valid: <a href="page.html" title="some title text">some anchor text</a> but the title text is not indexed.
The title text is there for users. It pops up on modern browsers. The anchor text is indexed.

Valid: <a href="page.html" title="some title text"><img src="image.png" alt="some alt text"></a>
The alt text is now indexed, as well as helping browsers without images.
On modern browsers the title text pops up as well, but this text is not indexed.

You cannot have alt text in a text link. The alt attribute can only be used with the <img> tag.

[keyplyr]

I've recently removed all title tags in text links unless the link text does not accurately represent the information at the resulting document:

<a href="widgets.htm" title="petite ladies widgets">more info</a>

I feel that too much emphasis has been focused on the <a> title tag as an SEO technique for achieving ranking, even though there has been no evidence shown to prove that Google gives any weight at all to the <a> title tag.

The title should only be used as an accessibility attribute. Using this tag to cram KW is going against accessibility by forcing some users to hear redundant, confusing descriptions instead of accurate link info.